<p>I have a few questions about transferring to Columbia:</p>
<p>If you're transferring from a community college, about how many credits should you expect to be able to transfer over?</p>
<p>I saw on another thread that work experience is important. How much does it really matter? I've been trying hard to find a job for the last year w/ no luck. I had previous work experience in h.s. though.</p>
<p>And I've read the transfer section on Columbia's website, but when they say that they expect you to graduate in eight semesters, how strict are they on that? What if you only went for three semesters previously, but would plan to transfer for your third year? Would it count as three or four semesters?</p>
<p>And one more (sorry) - I received credit (a whole semesters worth) at my college for AP exams - but it says that you need to have a course description and syllabus for classes you plan to transfer. I never received a syllabus b/c I never actually took the course. For situations like that, would they even count those classes for credit if I managed to get a syllabus somehow? Or would they only consider my actual AP exam scores?</p>
<p>Sorry if that was kind of a lot of questions. I would really appreciate it if anyone could help me out though. Thanks.</p>
<p>I am not sure about transferring from community college versus any other school, but you should expect most of your course credits to transfer over, even if they do not directly equate to courses at Columbia. This just means that some of your previous credits might be superfluous because they are not necessary to graduate with your chosen major at Columbia.</p>
<p>I would say you are fine with work/EC experience from HS. College ECs aren’t really as important as your college GPA. Job experience, specifically, isn’t <em>mandatory</em> as long as you’ve pursued other ECs outside of school.</p>
<p>Columbia is very strict regarding students graduating in 8 semesters. Graduating in more than 8 semesters is very, very rare and Columbia will probably be incredibly hesitant on granting extra time to complete your course requirements. Also, I’m not positive, but I think starting in your 3rd year would mean you are technically beginning your 5th semester, having taken 4 already, regardless of how many semesters you’ve <em>actually</em> completed.</p>
<p>Your AP exam scores will be reevaluated by Columbia, regardless of what exemptions those scores gave you at your previous school. That said, if Columbia appoints course exemptions from AP scores differently than your previous school, you should not have to repeat any courses that you were able to skip at your last school. i.e. Your school accepted 4’s and 5’s in AP Calc, which allowed you to skip Calc I and II and go straight to Calc III. Columbia only accepts 5’s, but you already took Calc III. You would not have to take Calc I and II at Columbia.</p>